


Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These

by r_lee



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: C-Bucs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High-altitude training wasn't supposed to end up this way. The C-Bucs' first few weeks in the mountains near Delphi. Spoilers for <i>The Plan.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like These

A couple days up in the mountains, that's all, just a couple days. Frak knows the team could use all the training it could get: the year wasn't their most stellar one by any stretch of the imagination. Individually everyone was either pretty good or fine or okay or adequate. One or two of them had spectacular moments, and not everyone -- all right, none of the rest of them -- bothered to follow his workout lead. Too much trouble: he got it. They'd made it. They were pro ball players, all of them, but he knew from his fourteen years as a pro that it wasn't just getting there that mattered. It was staying there, and constantly improving, beating the odds that said most pyramid players suffered career-ending injuries within their first seven years. Frak yeah, the game was rough and tumble; that was the nature of it. The only way to conquer the game was to stay one step ahead of it.

There were reasons Coach and the managers pulled him aside that day a couple years ago, clapped him on the back, and handed him a new jersey with a C over the chest. Same number six on the back, same arc of the name ANDERS protecting it like a rainbow over treasure, press conference to follow. He was... man, he was touched, touched deep in the gut, touched in a way he'd never been before. Not with any of his teams, not with any of the... the kudos he'd received, the fame, the contracts, the magazine covers, the glamorous life pyramid afforded him. That kind of recognition went above and beyond anything he expected, 'cause as far as he was concerned, he was just a guy doing his thing. Lucky, because he got to do something he loved, something he was good at, and how many people got to do what they loved for a living? How many people on a pyramid team? Thirty-two in season, counting the reserves and second string. How many teams in the league on all twelve colonies, times thirty-two? Compare that to the population of the twelve colonies, and their numbers were pretty frakking small.

And how many teams had captains? Yeah, it was an honorary title, but with it came a whole new set of responsibilities and he wasn't getting any younger. Transition, he told himself, get used to the fact that these kids are gonna think they can beat your ass to a pulp out there on the field with a couple flashy moves they think you've never seen before. Teach them, Coach implored, take an active role with training, pass on what you know. Make them better. Convince them to get their heads out of their asses and work hard at their game. Show them how to improve. You know how to do it, Sam, but these motherfrakkers think since they're here, they know it all. Help me show them they don't.

He did, too, at every opportunity. Extra practice, games of one-on-one, two-on-one, three-on-one, more. As generous at pyramid as he was with the money he couldn't spend fast enough, he passed on what he knew to those players who'd listen. Not all of them wanted to. Like Coach said, some of them thought they knew it all.

"At least they're all enthusiastic," he told Coach from the sidelines during practice.

Coach nodded. "Yeah. Enthusiasm and their heads up their asses will get them a long way in this game. A long way to the hospital by ambulance. Get out there, Sam. Show those--" Coach stopped, blew his whistle. "Gods damn it, Ten-Point, cut that off-balance crap right the frak out. Plant _both_ feet or get the frak off the field. Both feet. Sam, show him what I mean."

You got it, Coach, he nodded silently. He ran back out onto the field, Ten-Point full of resentment for being singled out but hey, man, pyramid was a team sport and the captain was nothing if not a team player. He didn't score the most points; that wasn't a forward guard's job. No, his job was to set up the plays and get them going, to make sure his teammates moved with the proper combination of aggression and finesse, to make sure the blockers kept the way to the plinth open, to throw that perfect pass and make sure someone scored that perfect point. Whether it was him or someone else didn't matter, not to him, not personally. Did the C-Bucs win more games when he was running the plays? _That_ mattered, and yeah, they did.

So he did his thing, because it worked for him. Got to Atlas Arena early every day, did his own workout, dedicated and serious. Did his strength training, his conditioning, took his practice shots, ran the stadium. Up and down the steps, in between the rows of seats, on the field, on the sidelines. He knew that place like he knew his own skin. He could make a shot from any point in the field and have it hit any backboard, any one he chose, on any given day. If his teammates were more interested in staying out late partying, that was their business, not his. He was easy. Whatever works, man, whatever works best for you, he'd tell them, then kick _their_ sorry asses in practice. What could he say: he loved the game, and he was very, very good at it.

+++

A couple days up in the mountains, that's all. A couple days camping out, frakking around. Good -- no, _great_ \-- team-building exercise. Take some of the new kids just called up, let them know what the C-Bucs organization was all about. For a guy who lived and breathed pyramid, it was a no-brainer. Up early, up there in the clean fresh air? Nothing like it, no better feeling. Sure, he loved Atlas, loved that open-air stadium of theirs, but he loved it even more up in the mountains. If he had one weakness it was for the outdoors; he'd never liked being confined, never liked being stuck inside for too long. Oh, he could do it, and he had. He did, when he played on Gemenon with all the sand and grit, but he hadn't loved it like he loved the green openness of Caprica or the slate blue oceans of Picon, where he'd grown up, or the sandy sunshine of Leonis where he'd first played pro pyramid. He was Pican. By default that made him a runner and sure, he'd veered off toward pyramid instead of boxing like so many other Picans, and he'd never regretted it. Up in Delphi, up in the mountains, not far from his old University stomping grounds, he felt frakking _great._ By the time most of his teammates were just beginning to stir, he'd already had his requisite couple cups of coffee and done his limbering up. He was ready to go, ready like never before. Bring it on: he made himself the target, the guy to beat. It was fun. Beautiful frakking morning, with the dew burning off the trees and grass. His starting backcourt, Barolay and Sue-Shaun, shook their heads and laughed at him as a couple reserves challenged him, took him on. Barolay even got into the act and he knew in a three-on-one he didn't stand a chance, but he'd do his best.

He always did, and when Coach got into the act and lobbed an impossible shot -- one-handed, man, with a coffee cup in the other hand -- into a cage, he knew he was frakked but it was good. All good, all in fun, and when he found himself slammed to the ground by the next tackle he lay there, the feel of the grass beneath his fingertips and the ground beneath his head, and he smiled and breathed it all in, all of it, every bit.

And then in the space of a single heartbeat, it all changed. It was the noise at first: his eyes opened, echoing back the blue of the mountain sky, and he knew nothing was ever gonna be the same again.

"All this has happened before." He didn't know why he said it, except that he'd heard in times of stress people turn to religion and spirituality for comfort. If the sight of everything around you being nuked wasn't enough to demand a mad dash for comfort, then he didn't know what was.

+++

Surreal. That was pretty much the only word for it. _Is this some kind of joke?_ turned pretty godsdamn fast into panic, into _I have to get back to Caprica City, I have family there_ and _someone turn on the wireless, see if anyone's saying anything_ and _frak, there's no cell phone service_ and _what are we gonna do? what the frak are we gonna do?_

Why were they all looking at him? He didn't have any more of a clue than anyone else. He was a ball player, just a ball player, no more than that, just... just a guy whose face helped sell tickets to a godsdamn _game._ Why were they all looking at him like he ought to know what the frak was gonna happen next?

+++

Just a couple days in the mountains turned into never being able to _leave_ the mountains. None of the things that had mattered yesterday or even an hour ago mattered any more. Whatever was going on was going on.

"Look," he told his teammates with a confidence he sure as frak didn't feel, "I'm not just gonna lay down and die here. We're not gonna do that, none of us. We're gonna get through this."

"How, Sam?" It was a good question and easier to answer than _why._ A plaintive one, and the answer was he didn't know. He had no frakking idea, but he was pretty godsdamn sure sitting still like targets wasn't the answer here any more than it was in pyramid. Lucky for them Delphi was his old stomping ground, he knew it. They couldn't stay right in the middle of Oracle Park, that was for sure, so he decided to lead the team to the outskirts of the city, to Delphi Union High School. During his college years they'd played a little exhibition ball out there. It was kind of a shit location, but it was far enough away from the city so they had a reasonable chance at using it for shelter and making themselves a frak of a lot less noticeable than they would anywhere else. No one knew what was going on -- he sure didn't -- but at the very least, he was used to taking charge of this bunch of motherfrakkers.

Slowly, panic strategy gave way to a new form of strategy. He wasn't comfortable with it, didn't want the responsibility of it, but didn't know what the frak else to do. It didn't necessarily work in his favor that nobody else knew the area because he really, _really_ didn't want to be in charge but they kept looking at him, looking to him. _What do we do now, T? Hey, captain, what's our move?_ All those motherfrakkers who used to love to not listen to him in practice hung on his every word, his every thought.

It was a hell of a responsibility.

On the way to Delphi Union, loaded up with the necessities they could carry on their backs, they looked out over a bridge and saw Cylons. "The bad guys from my mom's bedtime stories," whispered Barolay, and she clutched his arm tight, dug her fingers in.

"Shh, shh," he told her. It was far more tactical than comforting, and frak if he knew what to do about it other than get out of their way and make it to the school, and pick a place deep inside without a lot of windows where they could gather their thoughts and breathe and start to make plans. The gym there would be perfect. Later on, some of them could circle back to Oracle and grab whatever supplies they could: extra sleeping bags, food, water. Maybe whoever went would even make it back alive. Hey, it worked in the movies.

Usually.

+++

Barolay insisted on going with him, and Sue-Shaun, and before he knew it Rally and Ten-Point nodded that they would go too. The starting five C-Bucs, their elite team: the irony of it wasn't lost on him. He pointed to Coach ("you're in charge here, everyone shut the frak up and listen to Coach") and told him if they didn't make it back, the nearest hospital was at Pilgrim Bay. Come daylight they'd have to steal a car ("figure it out, I can't help you there, man") and get their sorry asses some anti-radiation meds. He'd seen it in a movie or two, and at least it was _something_ to give people hope. He talked like he knew what he was saying. Only this morning they'd called that shit trash talk but now... now people paid attention to it, nodded at it. 

It took hours in the darkness, circling back to Oracle Park, silent as they could be, avoiding that frakking bridge the Centurions had parked beneath earlier. They packed up what supplies they could, out there under the stars, and in the dark they could see that Gemenon was on fire, just like when they'd looked down from the lip of their mountain earlier, pockets of Caprica were on fire. At least the parts they could see through the mushroom clouds had been burning and he didn't want to think about home, about Caprica City, about the people there he knew and loved. The thought came at too high a cost: the realization that these, these teammates of his, his surrogate family, they might be the only ones left. The only ones. He kept the thought to himself -- nothing like a little apocalypse to rattle your self-esteem anyway and voicing it didn't serve any frakking purpose at all other than to spread the misery -- but he was sure everyone was thinking the same thing. When they weren't all in shock, they could talk about it. The five of them moved like the well-oiled and incredibly efficient pyramid-playing machine they hadn't quite been able to be during the season (oh, gods, the season, it was over and they would never be any better than the fourth-frakking-place team, shut the frak up, Sam, that doesn't matter any more). At the park, they gathered things stealthily and efficiently and took their frakking time covering their tracks, not that it really mattered. Forty-something people -- forty-something human beings -- against a bunch of bad-guy robots. Their odds were absolute shit, and they all knew it but hope was a funny thing. They had to have it. Someone had to be an optimist about it.

"What are we gonna do, T?" Barolay was on the verge of tears or panic, one or the other.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, gave her a brotherly squeeze. "We're gonna take it one play at a time. Get through it one frakking moment at a time. Just like always." Pyramid, at least, was a language they all understood. Privately, he thought they'd be doing well just to make it through the night, but he knew better than to say that, too.

+++

Their first stop the next day -- the sun still rose, Gemenon was still on fire, the grass was still green, the air was eerily devoid of bird songs -- was the campus militia office at the University at Delphi. "Thank frak you know this town, Sam," Coach offered. The city was quiet; they absorbed the stragglers they met along the way because with at least two worlds wiped out there was no point in leaving anyone behind. In the woods they met a handful of frightened hikers, a couple loners, assorted other people, even a group of I-told-you-so survivalists who proved to be really handy with the guns and ammo once they got to the University. They stockpiled everything into a nearby vehicle and the people who knew weapons rode guard, and they drove it all back to the high school. Later there'd be time to take some of those pyramid-honed fine motor skills and train them on automatic and semi-automatic rifles, but first they had to get down to Pilgrim Bay. 

This whole part of Caprica was way too quiet for his liking, but it didn't take long to figure out why: there was no one left. Gone or dead, there was no one left, and raiding the hospital's supplies felt a frak of a lot like treason but in wartime, it was all fair game. The people here sure as frak didn't need any of it any more. Enough anti-rads for all of them several times over, and while they were out they hit a bunch of pharmacies and markets and grabbed whatever they could and hauled their asses back up to Delphi where the air smelled a lot cleaner and healthier, even if it wasn't.

By the end of that first week, surviving had already taken on a rhythm of its own and they'd rebuilt the pyramid court at the high school ("some things just aren't negotiable," he'd told his teammates, "so get frakking moving on it") and by the middle of the second week they had a small fleet of military vehicles and half the classrooms were packed with supplies and munitions. The Cylons didn't patrol the area, seemingly, so they'd started going after the toasters instead. One day Rally even brought back a whole Centurion leg, intact.

"What are we gonna do, T?" Barolay asked him the question at least once a day.

This time, he turned to her with a little laugh. "What does Coach always say when we ask him that in practice?"

Jean shrugged. "To keep going, keep doing what we're doing."

"Right." He nodded, looked her in the eyes, and smiled. "We're gonna do what we always do. Shoot til we can't. Only this time it's a different kind of shooting. That's all."

"Gods." She shook her head and let out a deep sigh. "You ever get sick of it? Wish we could go back to the way things used to be? Think maybe it's just a bad dream and you'll wake up and laugh over it, then head down to the arena and play some ball?"

"All the time, man. All the frakking time."

+++

A couple days up in the mountains, that's all, just a couple days. Yeah, right. By the end of the third week they'd lost a third of their team. In exchange, though, they'd picked up a few more people, including a funny cranky old Brother named Cavil, one of the weirdest men of the cloth they'd ever met but they cut him a lot of slack. They'd found him on a night raid where a bunch of corpses were being bulldozed and buried, plucked him right out of the middle of the dead bodies. That'd be enough to make anyone act frakked up for a good long time, he figured, gods or no gods. 

That was the same mission where he and Barolay discovered that some of the toasters looked human, but he didn't like to think about that a frak of a lot, especially just then. They'd just lost Coach and Kai in a raid gone wrong, and, the whole camp was in mourning. He figured they all felt better having Brother Cavil in their midst. All this time, he knew, it wasn't just Barolay looking for answers. They all were. They all wanted to believe what they were doing mattered, they all wanted something to live for. He'd been about as religious as a frakking doorknob his entire life, but even he admitted to himself -- between bouts of replaying Coach's and Kai's deaths like a bad film he couldn't turn off -- that at least now, for whatever reason, they had a connection to the divine. It might be tenuous as frak; half the camp thought Cavil was off his rocker. But it was there, man, it was there.

It was there and it gave them hope, and that's all any of them could have asked for.


End file.
